It is known in the art to provide attachments to a stethoscope to enable a doctor to employ various devices that may be used during the course of conducting an examination of a patient when a stethoscope is needed as part of the examination.
One such example is disclosed in Wehby (U.S. Pat. No. 2,566,687) in which a stethoscope head is constructed with a flashlight, tongue blade and thermometer to produce a comprehensive stethoscope type of apparatus. Such devices are disadvantageous because the stethoscope head must be retooled at significant costs and the resulting stethoscope, although having the additional features set forth in the reference, must be produced at significantly higher cost in order to accommodate all of the medical devices within the head of the stethoscope.
There have been stethoscopes provided with a light source which do not include other medical functions. One such example is disclosed in Aratriste (U.S. Pat. No. 5,989,186) which includes a stethoscope head and flexible tubing coupled to the stethoscope head and in communication with ear pieces for the transmission of sound from the patient's body. A casing is affixed to a cover of the stethoscope head and has a light source mounted therein. Quite clearly, as with the '687 patent reference, significant modification of a standard stethoscope especially the headpiece must be made in order to accommodate the light source part in the '186 patent reference.
Another example of a stethoscope with a light source is disclosed in Ryan (U.S. Pat. No. 6,454,045) which employs an optical fiber light through the tubing that connects the ear pieces to the stethoscope head. Hereagain, such a device requires significant retooling of the standard stethoscope and although providing a suitable light source, it does so at a significant increase in cost.
It would therefore be desirable for use with a standard stethoscope to have a light source which is reversibly attachable to the headpiece of the stethoscope which can be used as desired and readily removed when not needed.
It would be a further advantage in the art of providing a stethoscope with a light source to enable the light resource to be readily accessible to have component parts such as light bulbs and batteries easily replaced without having to involve a stethoscope itself in the repair process.